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History
of the Tillman Plant Location
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About
1768 King Charles III of Spain got word through French espionage
that Czarina Catherine of Russia had ordered colonization in the
Pacific already being exploited by Russian fur traders. This was
someplace near an area of a Spanish outpost, visited by Cortes over
200 years before and called by the soldiers "California".
Charles did not know where or what California was, but whatever
it was, he didn't want the Russians to take it from him.
A young, tough, bright, bored, governor-with-nothing-to-govern,
Gaspar de Portola, was in Loreto, Baja California. He was ordered
to find an overland route to Monterey, last seen by a Spaniard 165
years before, and establish a colony there. He jumped at the chance
and in the summer of 1769 he, Fr. Serra, and a small contingent
began walking North. He ordered three other contingents from La
Paz and Rosaria to meet him in San Diego. All told, 219 soldiers,
priests, and Indians started; fewer than half of them lived to reach
San Diego. One ship made it with only two crew members alive: In
July Portola assembled a small company of "skeletons who had
been spared", and with Fr. Crespi as diarist (Fr. Serra, injured,
stayed in San Diego), set off to guess their way to Monterey. The
expedition is an epic story but of interest here is that on August
5, 1769 Portola and his company staggered down the Sepulveda Pass
to TWRP.
They were cordially received by about 200 Gabrielenos and camped
nearby, probably in the oaks at Ventura and Balboa Blvds.
 In
seven years, De Anza, California's first real estate agent brought
colonists to TWRP-JG and in just 10 more years it was the center
of the cattle ranch of Francisco Reyes, a Black man who was the
first mayor of Los Angeles In 1797 Fr. Lasuen began to establish
a mission. TWRP-JG was the original choice for its location, but
as it was to be an agricultural endeavor, the more stable water
supply of the North Valley dictated the location of the San Fernando
Mission there. On the East Coast George Washington was President.
Unlike most of the Valley, the TWRP-JG site was never part of the
San Fernando Mission land. Rather, the entire Sepulveda Flood Control
basin, plus a bit more, comprised the Los Encinos ranch, a land
grant antedating the Mission. The ranch's headquarters were, and
are, located at Balboa and Ventura Blvds. While it passed through
several owners, the ranch's 4,460 acres remained patent until 1915
when it was subdivided. From the time of the United States' Revolution
until World War I the Los Encinos ranch was at the center of incredible
ranching and agricultural activity. At one time the Mission grazed
21,000 head of cattle and the Ranch 32,000 sheep. Since it was at
the junction of the East-West road from Los Angeles' center (Ventura
Blvd.) and the North-South road from Santa Monica and West Los Angeles
(Sepulveda Blvd.) and with ample water and fertile soil, the ranch
hosted Indian marauders, camel drovers, gold seekers, bandits, and
Spanish, Mexican and American soldiers and travelers, to mention
but a few. By the 20th century, vegetable farming, citrus, and chickens
had replaced grain and livestock. With the arrival of Owens Valley
water in 1913 and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, both
providing the raw materials for urbanization, the subdivision of
the Valley began. In 1915 the Los Encinos Ranch was subdivided,
most of the land away from the River into residences, the land along
the side of the River including TWRP-JG, being subject to yearly
flooding, remained farm land.
In 1936 the country was in the middle of a great economic depression
and Congress, in a make-work mood, put the Army Corps of Engineers
into flood control throughout the country. The creeks and River
in the Valley served only as storm channels, their locations varying
from year to year as flooding cut through the soft Valley soil.
1938 was an extremely wet winter, ending with 11 inches of rain
the first five days of March. Over S40,000,000 in damage was done
and 49 lives were lost in the flood. (This is now referred to by
engineers as a "50 year" flood.) In 1939 the Army Corps
of Engineers began construction of the Sepulveda Dam and concretizing
the creeks and River. The Los Encinos Ranch subdivisions along the
side of the River were seized by the Army by the process of eminent
domain to become the flood control basin. The dam was completed
in 1941 at a cost of $6,700,000. The land in the basin was leased
for farming purposes but after World War II it was permanently leased
to the City of Los Angeles for $1.00 a year which used some of it
for recreational purposes. |
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Japanese Garden
6100 Woodley Ave, Van Nuys, California, 91406
Tel 818 756 8166 Fax 818 756
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